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Samuel Merrill diaries, 1799-1845

by: Samuel Merrill

Publication date: 1845

Usage: Public Domain Mark 1.0

Topics: Biddeford history, Maine history, diaries, 18th century history, business, death, birth, vital records

Collection: opensource

Language: English

Samuel Merrill diaries, 1799-1845.

[s.l. : s.n.]

188 pages : 29 cm.

Transcription copy, housed in a loose leaf binder.

An introductory essay in the binder reads: "Samuel Merrill who kept this diary from 1799 to 1844 was born in Buxton and came to Biddeford at the age of 23 when he bought 3 mills of Samuel Bradbury on the Biddeford shore of the Saco River from about Elm Street to Thacher's Creek. One of the mills was a saw mill, another a grist mill, the third a fulling mill. Two years later he married Bradbury's daughter, Sarah Bradbury and thereafter was active with his father-in-law in the lumber and shipping trade. His spelling, as was often the case then, was amusingly phonetic - e.g. halling for hauling - but the picture he gives, and the wide range of local and national news he reports, make his diary an unusual record of Biddeford and rural Maine life. He died in Biddeford August 2, 1845 at 69, having been born August 29, 1776 in the month after the Declaration of Independence." -Dane Yorke, McArthur Librarian 1939-1969

From Biddeford history collections - McArthur Public Library, Biddeford, Maine, USA (mcarthurlibrary.org)